Paramount, Platinum Dunes Team for Thriller 'Big Rig' (Exclusive)

The Melrose Avenue studio has picked up the thriller pitch from Bragi Schut with Michael Bay’s Platinum Dunes on board to produce.

Andrew Form and Brad Fuller will produce with Bay.

Plot details are being kept locked in the cab, but the project is described as taking loose inspiration from Canada’s infamous Highway of Tears, which runs through British Columbia. Over the course of four decades, numerous women have either been murdered or gone missing along that 700-plus kilometer stretch of road.

It is known that the plot, taking a nod from the classic Steven Spielberg trucker thriller Duel, centers on a good trucker who runs afoul of the evil man who is responsible for the many deaths.

The pitch sale marks the third original project that Schut has set up or is involved with, bucking a trend for many writers who find themselves working on branded properties.

Schut co-wrote The Maze, a Sony thriller currently in production starring Deborah Ann Woll, Logan Miller and Taylor Russell. He also recently reteamed with Maze producer Neal H. Moritz for an untitled supernatural thriller, which has been described as being in the vein of Robert Zemeckis’ What Lies Beneath.

The scribe, who may be best known for penning the 2011 supernatural action movie Season of the Witch that starred Nicolas Cage, is repped by Verve, Brian Spink at Realm Management and attorney Rob Szymanski at Eclipse Law Corporation.

Platinum Dunes last produced Ouija: Origin of Evil and is developing a new installment of its thriller franchise, The Purge.